It was all in the timing and treatment for local woman recovering from a stroke

Sunday

Nov 11, 2012 at 3:15 AM

By Michelle Kingstonmkingston@fosters.com

DOVER — Her husband said it was nothing short of a miracle.

Roberta Cullity, 59, is feeling great today, after surviving a stroke at Cocheco Country Club at the end of September.

After finishing the Fall Classic tournament for the New Hampshire Women’s Golf Association at the club, Roberta said the women began piling into the banquet room. Realizing she forgot her purse, Roberta excused herself from her friends and walked back down to the golf cart she had shared with her golf partner, Tara Watt. Little did she know, Watt had already grabbed her purse, looking forward to teasing Roberta once again about being forgetful, Roberta said.

“I began walking through the pro-shop back to the table, and as I was walking, I felt like the room was narrowing or like I was going through a tunnel,” Roberta said. “Other than that, I was fine. I got up to our table and, they always give me a hard time for forgetting my clubs here or there or something, and of course, Andrea Morrell said to me, “‘Roberta, look what I found!’ She had my purse.”

Morrell was concerned when Roberta did not tease back, the way she normally does.

“They noticed her face was drooping on the right side and she couldn’t speak and she was fumbling with her sunglasses,” Roberta’s husband, Bill, said. “Within minutes, she lost all feeling in her right side.”

A retired nurse, Debby Crowley, who was also playing in the NHWGA tournament, called 9-1-1, who directed her to lay Roberta on the floor. Paramedics arrived at the country club, taking Roberta to Wentworth-Douglass Hospital, who by then had lost the ability to speak and was paralyzed on the right side of her body.

“I think they said it took them maybe fifteen minutes to get to the golf course,” Roberta said.

Roberta’s husband was called by his wife’s friend while Crowley was calling 9-1-1, getting Bill from his home in Manchester to Wentworth-Douglass within forty-five minutes.

“This was all crucial to the timing of the doctors applying or giving my wife the tPa,” Bill said.

A tPa is a clot-busting drug, Bill said, that can only be given to patients within three hours of when a stroke patient last appeared normal. Once Bill arrived at the hospital, he was able to sign consent forms to allow the doctors to give Roberta the treatment in time.

“When I got there, and after I had seen Roberta, the doctor got my attention quickly and said this is the recommended treatment: a burst of tPa,” Bill said. “He told me a majority of patients do not make it in time to get this treatment. He said there are risks. There was a chance there could be fatal bleeding, it could show signs of improvement within 20 minutes, there could be no improvement at all, or there could be improvement and then revert back. I signed the approval.”

The stroke program coordinator at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital, Cindy Spencer, RN, stressed the importance of getting to the hospital as soon as possible so doctors can treat patients quickly. Spencer said to remember the acronym, FAST, with the F standing for facial drooping, the A for arm weakness, the S for speech problems and the T for time being critical. She said that many people make the mistake of first calling a loved one, a neighbor or their doctor when they start to feel a stroke symptom.

Within 20 minutes, Bill said Roberta squeezed his hand, proving it was a grace of God that she was able to get to the hospital in time to receive this treatment. He said these types of recoveries are phenomenal. Her speech also began to come back.

“Doctors proceeded to test her neurologically,” Bill said, commenting on how crucial the doctors were, not being able to thank them enough for their work on his wife.

Noreen Biehl, vice president of community relations for Wentworth-Douglass Hospital, said Wentworth-Douglass Hospital became the first hospital in the state of New Hampshire to achieve recognition as a primary stroke center by joint commission this year.

“We are so proud of this recognition,” she said.

Spencer said the stroke program at the hospital oversees the development of the program, keeps current on standards of care and evidence-based practice, as well as serving as a liaison with the hospital, regional and national stroke programs.

Doctors performed a CT scan and confirmed, along with the next day’s MRI, that Roberta had indeed suffered a large stroke. They said she had an ischemic stroke, where blood flow was prevented to the left side of her brain by a clot.

“They removed her from the ER to the ICU,” Bill said. “She had to stay flat on her back for 24 hours. She was released within five days, leaving the hospital on October first.”

The stroke came as a surprise to Roberta, but was not something she did not think could possibly happen to her. Roberta had been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation a year ago, causing her to have an irregular heartbeat and making her five times more likely to experience a stroke than before.

“It isn’t heart disease,” Bill said. “It just causes her heart to kick out of rhythm. It happens to a number of people. The key is to regulate the heart rhythms.”

Spencer said risk factors are both non-modifiable and modifiable. Advancing age, ethnicity and family history are non-modifiable and modifiable factors include staying healthy, managing blood pressure, stopping cigarette smoking and keeping diabetes well managed.

“Strokes are more common in people with atrial fibrillation, as well as people with abnormal lipids or types of cholesterol,” Spencer said. “In general, people who are out of shape, with obesity, a poor diet and lack of exercise, too.”

Bill said Roberta had seemed a bit tired the week before playing golf at Cocheco Country Club, breathing heavily when going up the stairs at home, something she normally did not do, and felt dehydrated. Aside from that, Roberta said she did not feel sick or feel as if something was wrong with her.

“Her full mobility is back now and speech and cognitive is going to take some time,” Bill said. “The doctors described it as a file cabinet tipping over. Now it is putting files back in order.”

Roberta will go through speech therapy and continue on blood-thinning medication, but said her life does not have to change dramatically due to the stroke.

“It is hard to focus on one thing with a lot of noise in a room. The kids came over and played Scategories, a game recommended as part of training, and I felt pretty good because half of the time no one else could answer and I could,” Roberta said. “But after laughing, it was hard to refocus back on words.”

She has also gotten back out onto the golf course.

“I went out last weekend,” Roberta said. “It was great. I’m going to play again on Saturday. I can also exercise and use the treadmill.”

With life looking up again and Roberta’s case not being life altering, the couple does not like to think about what would have happened if Roberta had not been in Dover and not near Wentworth-Douglass Hospital.

“There is a good possibility she could have been driving home somewhere,” Bill said. “Or, walking the trails with the dog along the lake. I don’t like to think about that, that she could have been lying there for hours. We were very lucky she was playing golf and fortunate she was in Dover because of how qualified Wentworth-Douglass Hospital is. She could’ve been almost anywhere and we are really thankful she was in Dover.”